Quick Tips ISSUE #8

Procrastination! Are You Slowly Boiling to Death?

First, a true story:

There were these three researchers who took a baby frog and popped it into a pot of boiling water. What do you think the frog did? If you answered “jumped out,” go to the head of the class! The impact was sudden enough to make it take quick, life-saving action.

Then they took the same frog and put it in a pot of cold water and slowly turned up the temperature until it reached boiling. In this case, what do you think the frog did? Of course, you guessed it: the answer is that he just slowly boiled to death. There was no moment of impact to make him jump.

NO IMPACT: 

Running a practice on a daily basis can sometimes cause you to feel like you are slowly boiling to death. You keep putting off certain matters and decisions, until the heat of your stress reaches a slow boil.

In most practices, if you are paying attention to detail, there are many, many issues that should be addressed. Most of them are not big enough to hit you over the head (impact) and make you take immediate action. Instead, you procrastinate.

TRY THIS:

On each issue that you notice during the day that cannot be immediately handled, quickly make a note about it. Keep all the notes in one place. At the end of the day, before you walk out the door, sit down with your schedule and the sticky notes,
and work out when you will take action on each one and put it in your diary.

Then enter your reward that you give yourself at the end of your work week IF you did each of the actions you diarized for that week. No cheating either!

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